


would it be a sin if I can't help falling in love with you?

by resurrectdead



Category: Amazingphil - Fandom, Danisnotonfire - Fandom
Genre: 1970s, 70's AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Catholic, Catholic Guilt, Catholicism, Chaptered, Falling In Love, First Crush, First Love, Forbidden Love, Friends to Lovers, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Questioning, Questioning Sexuality, Religious Content, Religious Guilt, Religious!Dan, Sexual Tension, Strangers to Lovers, Teen Years, Teenagers, Unfinished, phanfic, punk!phil, would you expect any less from me?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-06 19:52:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13418457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrectdead/pseuds/resurrectdead
Summary: “Hey.”Phil reaches over the counter. Leaning one elbow on it, he puts a finger underneath Dan’s chin, gently tilts his head back up. Dan tries not to tremble. He darts his eyes up and they catch at his lips, stay there as he speaks. (He wants to taste them so bad.)“I don’t know what kind of people you’refriendswith,” he starts, “but if they aren’t nice to you, maybe you should consider switching them out for some that are.”or: it's 1978, everything is a bad influence, catholicism makes you a bit sad sometimes and dan finds the answer to all his questions





	1. god only knows

**Author's Note:**

> hellohellohello!!
> 
> I felt a bit bad I've been posting just 1d stuff lately (it is my life and I probably need a new hobby), bc phan is how I started this account out over a year agooo and I've seen people comment on my old fics and I've just been like ????they're so bad I can do so much better than that
> 
> so! I tried!
> 
> I haven't finished this yet, which is truthfully quite scary to me to be posting anyway, but. it's a personal exercise, in my faith in myself and how I'll handle the stress. I hope you still love me.xxx

He’s sat in black slacks and a white shirt as he studies the rings on his grandmother’s hand. There’s several, is the thing, in many shifting colours and shades of off-gold, glinting yellow and green and even sometimes silver, where they’ve been polished too thoroughly, frantically, a way to fight off bad thoughts and stay focused she’s told him, she’s said this several times actually. Her small hands tremble a little as she flips the page of the psalm book in her palms.

They’re singing a hymn now, and it’s beautiful. Dan knows it all by heart of course but today he doesn’t dare join in. Open-mouthed he sits and soaks it in, the sound of the choir all around him at the pews resonating around the tall, hollowed ceiling and vibrating within him, has him feeling it up his legs and into his tummy, blooming like a flower and filling him with warmth. As if the sense of belonging isn’t enough, as if sitting here feeling how they’re all part of the same, safe circle, a thing much larger than life. As if all that isn’t a gift enough; God just keeps on giving, and Dan (greedily, his mum likes to add) just keeps on taking.

He must zone out then, the sound of the choir lulling him away as his eyes grow heavy and weary, and when he blinks again, coming to with his dark pink lips still parted and with a now equally as dark blush dusting his freckled cheeks, the priest is finishing up, saying something about sins. Because what else would he be talking about? Because, it all seems to be about things they shouldn’t do, rather than encouragement, things that are good. And then Dan is being pushed out of the pew. Down the aisle, past or just straight into the lowly chatting swarms of people, and through the big front doors swung open.

The cold, soothing embrace of the church leaves him behind, shoving him out in scalding heat and the reality that is the near 30 degree summer of the Reading suburbs, 1978. 

It’s simply fantastic.

He thinks for a moment his grandmother might scold him for not paying attention during mass, for not contributing in the song and instead engaging in what he thinks might be considered sloth, if he’s so unlucky. It is Sunday, after all, the most important day of the church according to his family. 

But. 

She’s already chatting away with some friends over at the end of the path, happily bathing in the sun and talking about Father’s excellent performance today. Dan thinks he can finally slump his tense shoulders.

He doesn’t, though. Because suddenly, Christin is in his face. He may or may not jump a little. 

“Dapper as always, Daniel,” she chirps, before he can even compose himself. She motions vaguely over his torso in a way he knows refers to his lack of tie, contradictory to the other boys their age. She smiles; long, strawberry blonde hair framing her heart-shaped face in the gentle breeze, sun amplifying her dimples, deep enough to press your thumb into. He’s known her since he started going to the same church. In other words, he supposes he’s known her since birth.

Dan blinks at her, pressing his feet into the gravel. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands and they twitch uncomfortably by his sides. “Yeah,” he husks then, stalling. Ever the conversationalist.

She’s pretty, is the thing. Dan very well knows she is and that’s probably the worst part of it all. She’s the kind of girl his mum would nudge him closer to, the kind of girl she’d talk into pecking his cheek and, essentially, makes her the kind of girl he needs to _desperately avoid_.

Her powder blue dress ruffles as she takes a step closer, Dan pointedly staring at the ground as her shiny, black shoes come into view. 

“Haven’t you missed me?” she asks, and a cold, white panic engulfs him from the pit of his stomach. She’s so close. He doesn’t want her to be. He wants her to be far, far away, and he wants to be safe.

He feels eyes on him then, crowd onlooking and tutting his nervosity. He feels sweat stick to the hair on the nape of his neck. Everything seems to be falling in around him like he’s in the middle of a deflating bouncy castle, and in a similar fashion all air is punched from his lungs when she recites the dreaded sentence:

“Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

He closes his eyes, body screaming no, brain screaming for help. Maybe he can sink through the ground. Maybe she’ll be gone when he opens his eyes. If he’d throw a rock, she’d look away, so that maybe he could bolt. He can probably run across the whole village if he’s just given a few seconds advantage, losing her in the market, across the town square, jump into the river if he has to. 

He just needs to _leave_.

But when he opens his eyes again - big and owl-like, he’s sure - she’s still there. And she’s still looking at him. It’s not a dream, and he won’t wake up drenched in sweat and tears and tangled sheets. 

“Sorry,” he croaks, gets an idea and fake coughs into his elbow crook. “Got a bit of an, ehm. I don’t know. Not feeling great today, to be honest.”

“Don’t be silly!” she squeals gleefully. And then she takes the last needed step forward and presses a hot, closed-mouthed kiss to his lips.

It makes Dan’s blood run cold.

He’s been kissed before, of course he has. His first was with Julie. When they were 11, when he was in Sunday school and she wouldn’t let him leave unless he kissed her, right then and there; then there was Karen, in a game of spin the bottle, in year 8, with everybody cheering him on, the boys that he’d been nothing but kind to calling him a dirty faggot until he kissed her to fight back the tears stinging in his eyes to the sounds of their laughter. He’s even been kissed by Christin before, once as their parents were ogling, when they were sat on the swings waiting for them to finish talking one late afternoon when she just wouldn’t stop gently touching him.

Dan has been kissed a few times.

And all his kisses have been with girls.

When she pulls back, Dan isn’t sure whether the blood has all drained from his face or if it’s all collected there. He feels numb. His fight or flight has died down, all his alarm bells rung so much his ears are tired, and he drops his eyes to the ground, fights the urge to touch his lips. He strangely, in the least non-polite way possible, really wants to wash them.

“Sorry,” he mumbles again, as if he really needs to. As if it’s his fault for being...

Different.

Yeah, he’s just. Different. No one really dared put a label on it, didn’t really dare try. They’re all too afraid what the answer might be and, truthfully, so is he. 

He’s always been the most scared out of all of them.

“Just uh, caught a cold, or something,” he continues, rambles, eyes fixated on the ground and arms pinned to the side. He doesn’t even know if she’s still there. “I should, uh.”

“My mum’s made a cake,” she announces then, voice as sweet as always. The kind of sweetness you feel nauseous from after two bites; the kind you’ll be conditioned into hating to even just look at afterwards. “Chocolate. You’re all welcome, your grandmother and you. Mum too, of course, if she’s here.”

“That’s- Thank you, but don’t want to trouble you.” He stubs the toe of his shoes into the ground. They’re worn out, his dad’s old pair. They stab his heel if he’s not mindful of how he walks. “I, uh. I’m sick, so.”

He doesn’t see how she opens her mouth in disbelief. “You do speak a fair amount of lies, don’t you,” she says, voice light and breathy. She shakes her head, blonde curls swaying. “Best be careful, don’t want anyone finding out.”

His eyes widen as he sucks a breath. Finding out. _Finding out?_ What’s there to _find out_?

“What?”

“Lying is a sin, I’d have thought you knew,” she murmurs and, oh. Right. That’s what they’re talking about here. The fact Dan is actively faking disease and of course not being all too good at it. There’s nothing else here to be found out about. “So please do come to our house. I’ll make you a lovely cup of tea. Camomille?”

“Absolutely not necessary,” he’s about to politely respond when his grandmother walks up behind him, putting her bedazzled hand on his shoulder and squeezing.

“What’s this I hear, about a cake?” she coos, and Dan swears he loves her, God knows he loves her to the moon and back and there again. But when she makes him do these things, when she makes him feel as worthless as a speck of dirt, like he’s in no control of his own life and merely lives as a puppet… then, he’s not so sure how to feel about almost anything anymore. “Isn’t that lovely of Christin and her mother, Daniel?”

He thinks to himself how it isn’t in fact lovely, and how it would rather be lovely if people could decide to call him Dan instead of Daniel, like he wants them to and repeatedly has to ask for. But then she squeezes his shoulder again, as if to prompt a good answer out of him, like an on-switch for him to be a good grandson. Like squeezing dirty water out of a rag, but instead attempting to squeeze the horrid thoughts out of his brain. They still stay, though. Forever cowering in the corner.

“Yes,” he murmurs, staring at a spot on the ground. A tiny piece of black gravel among the grey. “That’s lovely.”

“We’ll be right over,” she decides happily, smile big towards Christin who returns it. “Best stop at the store first though, get you some nice flowers.”

“Very kind of you, missus,” Christin beams as she curtseys. “We’ll be expecting you.”

They end it with a shared smile, Dan’s grandmother steering him off towards their car with the same steel grip on his shoulder. He knows he’ll hear the best of her memorized Bible passages when they get to the enclosed space of the car, radio shut off for her words.

But the speech never comes. She doesn’t in fact say a word, the whole way to the store, and that’s what worries him more than anything.

Dan doesn’t like girls. He realised a long time ago, yet he’s so awfully afraid to face that fact, so horrendously afraid of someone else catching on. Because every other boy seems to like girls. All the other boys chase girls, mock them, pull their hair for their attention. Talk with them, send letters, hugs and hold hands. All the other boys like kissing girls.

Now, Dan likes girls as friends as much as anyone else, mind you. But ever since his friends became aware of this whole, sexual thing, is it? They’ve been acting different than him. Most importantly, they’ve been acting differently towards him. Because of it, he’s honestly not sure he even has friends anymore.

And Dan just wants to be normal. He didn’t choose this path. All he wants is to love like normal people, be with a girl, marry a girl. Give grandchildren to his parents. Experience having grandchildren himself. Somewhere deep within he feels like how that’s he’ll end up anyway. Miserable with someone he’ll never love, dead too early from grief.

His grandmother stops at the store and shoves a few notes into his palm. “Get something nice, not something they’ll know is cheap,” she says, Dan watching her from beneath his fringe having fallen into his eyes. “And be quick. Best not keep them waiting.”

He nods once, then he’s scrambling out of the car, in his rumpled white shirt and slacks, in his old shoes digging through his socks and into his chafings, and oh how he wishes he was someone else. How he wishes he could get away from here. 

It’s a fairly small store, which usually comes with being in a fairly small town. The air conditioning works on the best of days and the fluorescent light flickers if the wind blows too hard. There’s bouquets of flowers though, just inside of the entrance, and Dan gets the first heap he lays his eyes on. They’re yellow, big and sprouting; it’s sunflowers. Dan hates sunflowers.

Trying not to drag his feet he makes his way rather bravely past the comic books, though he can’t help sparing a glance. He’s never been allowed to buy any, not even borrow any home, but one of his classmates had him look through his Batman comic once. 

And there he is, powerful on the cover on the rickety shelf. 

Dan is sort of strangely fascinated by Batman, if he’s honest. Enticed, maybe. He’s just that much more exciting than Iron Man and Captain America. Because Batman wears all black and only goes out at night. Like a shadow he’ll move in the background, fighting crime, doing what’s good, and now that’s something Dan can support.

Especially because Batman can juggle two different lives. One life of wealth, of extravagance, but of misery. Another life of doing what he wants and what he thinks is the right thing to do. If Dan could choose anyone, he’d probably like to be Batman. Or be one of Batman’s girlfriends, because he’s not that big a fan of fighting and such. He doesn’t like them girls very much though, but then that just means he’d probably do a better job, he thinks.

He tears his eyes away, rather reluctantly; his grandmother would most likely have him killed, should he get a comic for his own pleasure rather than the flowers he was sent to get for the girl he hates. Funny, that. Funny how everything has to be the worst of the worst at all possible times. 

When he looks up, towards the employe at the cash machine, a million feelings hit him all at once. 

And they hit as hard as a freight train.

One feeling is interest. The man - the boy? - behind the counter is ghastly pale with pitch black hair, is the thing. Going from looking at Batman to looking at this person in the flesh, in his black and white contrasts save for the obligatory maroon supermarket long-sleeve, the forbidden faded ink of tattoos lining and swirling across his underarms where his sleeves have ridden up... it’s the same feelings of fascination and enticement. This boy looks like the night. This boy probably _is_ the night.

Another feeling is fear. It feels like one of those people his parents would have warned him about. One of those young adults in the streets that’ll rob you and have you killed and spread their diseases, whatever that must mean. But fight and flight never kicks in. Instead he just stares.

This other feeling is something Dan has never felt before. Which makes it the more exciting. It’s like a tightness in his tummy, yet also a fluttering, like a billion different good and nice but jittery nervous little things mixed up and some don’t even go together, but somehow it still works. It feels fantastic.

And then he’s hit with the anxiety.

He lays the bouquet on the counter, the boy glancing up from a book. His eyes are piercing. They’re icy blue, shifting green, shifting yellow… probably the bad lightning, Dan decides, but remains mesmerized. He’s got little holes and indents in his skin, two underneath his lip, one in his nose, like he’s had needles stuck through for whatever god-awful reason, like the punks with their piercings - is that what they call them? The ones so apparently popular in London?

Dan doesn’t believe in vampires, but maybe he’s in fact meeting one right now. 

“Hey,” the boy gruffs, flicking his black fringe out of his face. He pushes his glasses up his nose. Looks at Dan. “That’d be all?”

Dan nods silently, reaching his money over. The boy accepts it, and the feeling when their fingers brush must be something close to magnetic. That only happens in romance novels, Dan hazily remarks, as he fights a shiver.

Everything feels pink. Pink, like looking through heart-shaped glasses, like the ones the hippies wore, the ones that Dan saw on TV before his father changed the channel. Pink, like the sky on summer nights, when he’s perched on the window sill listening to birdsong before sleep.

“Going somewhere fancy?”

Dan stalls. “What?”

The boy gestures over his attire, from his slacks to his dress shirt. “Wedding or funeral?”

Dan is taken aback. His throat feels dry. Everything is seen through pink sunglasses he doesn’t own and never will own. 

“Oh. Neither.” He straightens his collar. A button pops open, and he flushes as he attempts to button it up again. “It’s Sunday.”

The boy arches an eyebrow. He watches as Dan struggles. “So?”

So. 

“It’s Sunday mass,” Dan elaborates, voice tiny. His palms are sweaty, his fingers slippery.

Two pale hands reach over the counter and buttons the button for him. Dan holds his hands by his side, holds his breath as well. Something stirs in his tummy again. Maybe he’s just getting sick. 

“Say again?” the boy prompts, leaning back. When Dan meets his eyes, he’s smirking.

“It’s…” Dan swallows dryly. “It was Sunday mass.” He runs his hand down the nape of his neck. Not sweating yet. Good. Good, he can make it out of this with just a mild burst of embarrassment. “Just got back.”

“So who’s the flowers for?” He lifts them up, sniffs them and bats his eyelashes. “Me?”

He’s so beautiful.

“No, um. I mean.” Dan takes them from his hands, clutches them to his chest. His heart is beating like a steel hammer. “For a friend. That we’re going to. Now. And I’m going to be late.”

The boy leans back in his creaking chair slightly and crosses his arms. “Impatient much, are we?” He waves his hand in the air. “Go on then. Run off to your girlfriend.”

“I don’t- I mean, she’s not- _I mean_.” Dan closes his eyes in frustration. He might be going beet red at this very moment. “Okay. Goodbye.”

“I’ll see you around?” the boy calls when Dan has turned around and is making a beeline towards the exit.

He looks over his shoulder. The same feelings, bunched up into a metal ball, are slam-dunked into his belly. “Sure.”

“I’m here all summer,” he says, grinning. He makes a tiny salute. “Bye, mystery boy. Please do come again.”

Dan musters a smile back. It’s twitchy, uncomfortable, and he lowers his head as he stumbles out.

He practically falls back into the car, nearly slamming his foot in the door. His stupid old shoes. He feels how he’s torn his chafing up again now, now that the other feelings have subsided. How did they manage to numb the sharp pain out?

“Daniel, the flowers!” his grandmother screeches, ripping them from his hands. Yellow petals fly everywhere. “You’re crushing them!”

Dan feels like he’s being crushed himself. And he doesn’t even know why. Nor by whom. 

Why doesn’t the store have name tags for their employees? Why would they hire tattooed, pierced, black-haired and blue-eyed and beautiful hooligans? 

Why would they?

 

 

 

The next few days are _Wish You Were Here_ on repeat. It’s _A Day At The Races_ , _Hunky Dory_ and then _Wish You Were Here_ all over again, just to hear the title track. The needle might scratch that particular spot he keeps dropping it back on, might create a tell-tale indent for everyone to see. For everyone to know. These aren’t even his records. His parents’ collection consists of something like, two mixes with works of The Ronettes, Ricky Nelson and more. They don’t want the bad influence, of course. He’s barely allowed to listen to Styx when they come on the radio.  


So Dan borrows his. Finds someone at school that will talk to him for long enough and let him pick his favourites for cheap. Brings the record player from the living room to his bedroom, shuts his door and windows though it’s scorching hot outside as well as inside, plays them when no one is home. Lays on his floor, the cool floorboards, stares at the ceiling and lets Freddie Mercury take him away, or David Gilmour, or the pestering thoughts of the boy at the store.  


This one has him slapping his forehead a few times, crossing his chest or getting on his knees to apologise profoundly for his sin. It must be a sin. He doesn’t know which, sure there’s many to cover it, just can’t pinpoint exactly which one it is he should feel bad for.  


Maybe it’s the way he can’t eat or sleep properly since he met him those three days ago. Maybe it’s the way he’s always thinking about him instead of of God and Jesus and The Holy Spirit. Maybe it’s the way he’s been feeling…  


Other things.  


_New_ things.  


He thinks about how pretty and pink his lips were, never really seen a boy with such pretty lips before. With girls it was appreciated, especially if he was going to have to kiss them; he could always look at someone and know they were beautiful.  


So why is this time different? Why does he feel that thing he’s slowly come to realise is definitely what people call having… _butterflies_?  


Just because his lips curved nicely with his smiles, just because his eyes were alarmingly blue. Just because he had strong arms with ink on them and a nice, low voice.  


Dan hears the car pull up on the gravel outside and throws himself on the record player. Gilmour is cut off mid-sentence of expressing how they’re just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl when Dan is throwing the record off, tugging the cord out and bunching it in his arms, then tumbling down the stairs. He puts it back in its place before his dad enters.  


He stops in the doorway to drop his key in the tray. “Alright, Daniel?”  


“Fine, dad,” Dan blatantly lies, feels the sting of it. He feels the sting of running as well, burning his lungs as he tries suppressing the need to start heaving his chest. “Was just looking for some music.”  


His dad looks skeptical for some reason. Maybe he can read the sin on him. Maybe it’s coming to the surface with the sweat on his forehead from his panic and sprint.  


Then he just points towards the player once. “Maybe put the cord in first, son.”  


He turns and walks into the kitchen. Dan collapses against the wall.  


“Your mother will take you shopping when she gets home,” he tells him through the door, and Dan’s heart skips a beat. It doesn’t feel like it’s because of his exhaustion anymore.  


Pink lips and a dark voice.  


He slides to the floor and begins pretending to look through the records.  


“Yes, dad,” he replies, finds a record by Beach Boys and slides it under his arm. He’ll listen later, when no one is home. The intro of _Good Vibrations_ plays in the back of his mind to flashbacks of locking eyes with a boy.  


He gets distracted, gets up and walks to the bookshelf instead. He gets a book out at random and makes his way up the stairs again.  


He lies in bed with _The Great Gatsby_ , as it so happens, but can’t read. He ends up just lying with the book on his chest, record on his beside table, watching the ceiling. The ceiling has nothing to show for him.  


He’s just lying tugging on his white t-shirt by the time his mum comes through the door. He’s immediately down the stairs, tucking it back into his jeans, not wanting to keep her waiting or cause a fuzz. He hates being scolded. Sometimes he’s had to kneel on a broomstick while reciting Bible verses.  


Mother is fine, but the radio is left off the whole ride to the store and it makes Dan’s breathing catch high in his throat. Upon entering the store, Dan’s eyes are immediately drawn to the cash register, or the person behind it, rather. The anxiety strikes before his eyes even focus.  


But he’s not there.  


It’s someone else standing by the counter, an older woman, the one that’s usually there in the afternoons. And Dan wonders if maybe it was all a dream. Sometimes God does things to test you. Maybe it was to measure his purity and his belief.  


Maybe he lost.  


He feels a sinking feeling in his tummy, begins to wander off as his mum feels for the best quality apples. He walks through all the aisles, looking at canned plums and chocolate sorbet in boxes.  


It’s back to normal, then. It’s back to anxiety, to kissing girls, to wishing he was someone else. Back to a greyscale life.  


Then he picks up a slight crackling noise. Music from the other end of a store. Does someone have a radio?  


Dan lifts his head and follows the sound. It’s when he passes the last aisle and gets to the corner with the frozen food merchendisers that he finds its source. It’s also then that he stops.  


The boy, in his maroon long-sleeve, black trousers and laced up boots, with his wonderful lips and gorgeous eyes, is stood with a broom, cleaning the floors. He looks up at the sound of Dan’s abrupt stop.  


When he lays eyes on his face, those wonderful lips curl into a smirk.  


He straightens and stands casually with the broom. Nods once, as if he’s breathless. Then licks his lips. Speaks. “You came back.”  


Dan sucks on his bottom lip for a bit. “Everyone needs to go shopping.”  


The boy scoffs and rolls his eyes. He gestures towards the radio on the floor, static just that vague to be able to make out what’s actually playing. “Fan of Elvis?”  


Dan registers it’s _Hound Dog_ playing then, something he’d heard himself on the radio but his parents had told him he, this Presley guy, was a bad person, swinging his hips in such a promiscuous way while he danced like a black man.  


Dan had been so intrigued. Wanted to see him dance for real.  


“My parents- um.” He looks behind himself, then speaks a tad lower. “My parents don’t let me listen to him. Say he’s a bad influence or whatnot.”  


“Elvis?” the boy blurts out. “A _bad influence_?”  


He grabs his broom and throws it from arm to arm, moving his whole body with it to turn to look at it like it’s a dance move, then begins playing air guitar with it to mimic the solo in the song. He moves it to act as a mic then, spreading his legs to look like Elvis, presumably, and he keeps his head angled down but his eyes on Dan’s. Dan can just barely believe what he’s seeing.  


He mimicks along with the lyrics, his hips jerking to the beat of the drum and his feet moving from one side to another. When the drum beats fast for that little bit after the chorus he moves his hips to match, boots squeaking, and Dan is mesmerized, looking at him like he’s part of the music, knowing all the words and steps.  


The chorus repeats itself and the boy drops his broom. He dances up to Dan and grabs his hand, making quick steps and swinging him with him. Dan’s eyes widen, well aware that he knows his own fair amount of respectable-distance-between-the-boy-and-the-girl couple dances from school, but doesn’t really have time to try to remember and instead just bursts out laughing. Surprised, but genuine. And he’s even more surprised because it’s _a genuine laugh_.  


He’s blushing profusely by the time the boy lets one of his hands go, swinging the other one around him above his head and Dan spins, gets spun out to arm's length by the time the last note rings out. And then he’s stood there, the boy’s hand still warm in his. Warm, with a pulse. Someone touching him. He looks back over his shoulder and sees he’s got a manic grin on his face.  


He pulls him back in and Dan nearly bumps into his chest, but he has time to stop himself just before and steady himself. They drop their hands, and then they’re just staring at each other.  


“That,” the boy says, breathing just that much heavier, “was Elvis.”  


Dan giggles involuntarily. He slaps a hand to his mouth, but he knows his eyes give him away because the boy’s own eyes seem to become just that much more gleeful.  


Dan immediately puts his right hand out, other one still muffling his words. “My name is Dan.”  


The boy’s smile only seems to grow bigger as he accepts his handshake. “Phil.”  


Dan removes the hand on his mouth, face aching with how wide his smile is. When was the last time he smiled like this? Has he _ever_?  


“Phil,” he repeats, feels the way it sounds from his mouth. Of course he’d have a nickname himself. Of course. “Hi.”  


“Hey,” Phil laughs, squeezes Dan’s hand. “You okay? Spun your brain out of your pretty head, did I?”  


“Oh.” Dan drops his hand, feels himself blush again. This boy really makes him go red a lot. That’s a lot to take in. Everything is so very overwhelming, these days. “I-”  


“Don’t,” Phil smiles gently, knocks his knuckles against his. “I’m messing.”  


Dan swallows thickly, can’t meet his eyes. What does that-  


What does that _mean_?  


He hears footsteps close in, heels on the tiles. His mum coming towards the milk bar with her cart.  


He feels gentle fingers brush down his bare arm. A dark voice husks from above him, smooth like the feeling of his touch; “Still pretty, though.”  


Then he slips away. And Dan is left, a pressure around him like all the air is sucked out of the room, or maybe it’s just been sucked out of his body. Like he can’t breathe, flushed and overwhelmed. He touched him. Touched his skin like it wasn’t anything, like how a boy touches a girl.  


How does people _breathe_?  


“Did you want anything?” his Mum asks, stepping up behind him. “Are you alright, poppet?”  


He’s not. A boy just touched him for the first time. Slowly, lovingly. Not just to greet him, tickle or poke him, to punch him like when they were children in the playground. He caressed him, cherished him. Ruined him for anyone else. Dan might just never be alright ever again.  


He nods. He almost believes it himself when he says it. “Fine.”  


 

 

 

“You shall not lie with a man, as with a woman.”  


He’s jittery. The church bench feels on fire, his clothes too tight, sticking to his skin and slowly suffocating him. Like he has to be hyper-aware of his every breath just to make it sound slightly normal and not raise suspicion; just have it sound slightly human.  


“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.”  


The priest sounds so sure of himself, protected by his pulpit. Protected by the collar of his shirt naming him the intelligent one here, the one with all the answers, the one knowing the truth. Who is a sinner, and who is not.  


And Dan feels like everyone can see the sin on him. Like everyone can read his filthy thoughts, just by looking at him. Not just with his starry eyes, with the sweat on his skin. 

But as if it was written on him. Like he’s been branded for life with hot, scalding iron, so that everyone knows everything about him, knows all his secrets; his only secret.  


“They shall surely be put to death.” The air feels so tight, metallic. Electric. He looks down at his grandmother’s rings and counts the seconds. “Their blood is upon them.”  


It’s almost as if the walls are closing in and the pews are the depths of Hell.  


That’s where he’s going. Hell is where he belongs.  


 

 

 

Dan finds himself making unnecessary trips to the store, pointedly trying not to act too desperate while making conversation or just stare hopelessly at Phil when he’s in and at the cash register, but when he isn’t there, he can’t quite ignore the tugging sadness as he leaves with the newspaper or his eleventh pack of gum that week.  


So the first time Dan sees someone at their workplace reading a comic book is in that same store when he’s walking up to buy the morning paper for his dad. To no one’s surprise, Phil is reading a new issue of Batman, glasses perched on his nose.  


“Working hard or hardly working?” Dan grins as he places the paper on the desk.  


To which Phil places his finger blindly on the tip of Dan’s nose.  


“Shush”, he says. “Poison Ivy just escaped with Harley from prison. They’re gonna go get the Joker.” He still looks up though, meets Dan’s surprised-and-confused concoction of a facial expression with a smirk. “Batman’s in for it now. These ladies got some strength.”  


Dan doesn’t reply.  


Phil boops his nose. “Boop.”  


Dan waves in front of his face as if swatting after a fly. “Stop it.”  


Though he can’t help the smile it forces out.  


Phil does seem to possess some sort of otherworldly power to always make Dan happy. This morning, Dan even had a little cry. Just him being silly, face pressed into his pillow, thinking about everything and how much wrong there is in the world. Especially in his world. Like his valiant, warming and life-giving sun was covered by an everlasting eclipse, never to escape.  


It felt like he was at the bottom of it all then. Just struggling to keep above surface to breathe, but every single mean word ever tossed his way laid a weight above him, slowly drowning him.  


And yet. Here he is now. Smiling like nothing of that ever mattered. Like Phil has the sunlight that can take all of that away with his momentary distraction. (And what a distraction he is, indeed.)  


He scoots the newspaper closer. “Don’t make me jealous,” he murmurs, eyeing Phil’s tattoos. (He wants to trace every single one with his fingertips, map out every curve and dot; feel how deep the ink sits or how smooth his skin is.) “My parents never let me buy comics.”  


Phil withdraws his hands and crosses his arms in front of himself. Dan’s eyes follow aimlessly. “No way?”  


“Yeah. They say they’re, you know… _a bad influence_.” Phil laughs at the memory of Elvis apparently being such an outrageous thing. “But I’ve got friends”, he lies, “that lets me borrow theirs and stuff. I always get the Batman ones.”  


“Batman’s my favourite too,” Phil murmurs, studying the comic. “He’s the only actual _person_ , isn’t he? He’s just a guy that wants to do some good.” He looks up to Dan, the softest smile on his face. “And of course he dresses in all black, so.”  


“Reminds me of you then,” Dan can’t help but say. He blushes. But, he plows on. “You’re the kindest person I know around here. And you have no reason to be nice to me. Yet you are.” He looks down at his feet, rubs the sole of his trainer over the other one. “Just a guy dressed in all black trying to do something good.”  


“Hey.”  


Phil reaches over the counter. Leaning one elbow on it, he puts a finger underneath Dan’s chin, gently tilts his head back up. Dan tries not to tremble. He darts his eyes up and they catch at his lips, stay there as he speaks. (He wants to taste them so bad.)  


“I don’t know what kind of people you’re _friends_ with,” he starts, “but if they aren’t nice to you, maybe you should consider switching them out for some that are.”  


Dan can’t bring himself to look up at Phil, however much he wants to. He feels hot all over, yet also like he wants to cry. Not a sad cry. Just some sort of relieved cry.  


Because someone finally knows. Someone knows Dan isn’t feeling good, and is doing everything in their way to turn that around.  


“I’m just a person,” Phil continues, sitting back down in his chair, pushing his glasses up with the finger that just had Dan hearing his heart thump in his ears. “It should be called bloody common decency to just be kind to one another. Especially to you.”  


He takes the paper and cashes it in, accepts Dan’s money when he slowly reaches them over. “ _Especially_ to me?”  


Phil gives him it back. “Yeah.” He flashes a crooked grin. “Because you’re my friend, aren’t you? I want you to be happy.”  


Dan clutches the newspaper so hard his dad later scolds him for it being wrinkled. It doesn’t matter, though, because Dan has a friend. After all the lies, all the hurt, the tears and the damage, he actually has a friend that likes him like he likes him back.  


Dan doesn’t have friends. It was never a choice, not to have any; just something that became slowly clearer as a fact as time went on. It was almost as if, the more he tried, the more they shunned him. The more nice he was, the more polite, the more please-and-thanks-and-would-you-like-to-have-my-slice-of-pie. They were only ever there when they could get something out of him, then left like a storm, leaving behind a slightly more damaged Dan.  


Every single time.  


So this is new. This is, _crazy_ , actually, and he’s ever so lucky his parents go out that night because it’s back to _Wish You Were Here_ on repeat, staring up at the ceiling and trying to tame his racing thoughts.  


He fails.


	2. you'd feel like heaven to touch

Dan realises he has a problem in the beginning of July.

Because, throughout more simple touches and smiles with Phil, throughout long talks and encouragements and even more smiles, Dan comes to realise that even though Phil is his friend and he should cherish that fact alone, there’s so much more overwhelming _want_ within him. 

You shouldn’t want to kiss your friend, should you? It shouldn’t keep you up at night, it shouldn’t make your heart race at just the thought. 

He’s being greedy. God must be testing him.

But, one day. One day, just a normal day really, something possesses him stay over, past his usual visiting time. No one comes into the store. They laugh and look in the comics, smile and touch. It goes on all until they finally glance away from each other to look at the clock on the wall, and realise it’s actually time to close up. It’s actually 8, and Dan is actually so grounded.

“I’m actually so grounded,” he says aloud.

Phil is stood leaning on his broom, sweeping up the place with Bob Dylan crackling from his stereo.

“I’ll drive you home,” is what he says. He shrugs. “If you want, I mean. Don’t mean to be creepy.”

“Um.” Dan looks out the window. It’s summertime, so the sky still has some powder blue colour lingering, mixed in with some bold brush strokes of peachy orange and pink. He could walk. He could just walk. “Sure.”

He feels giddy, happy but nervous, when Phil locks the backdoors of the shop. It’s not like he’s _doing_ anything, just riding a car for approximately five minutes. But he can’t help but feel like there’s something between them all of a sudden. Like Dan has an urge to be doing more than he’s doing at the moment, which is standing a few feet behind Phil as he jingles with his key chain, stuffs his shaky hands into his pockets when Phil turns to him with a smile. 

They walk together to the car. The air feels clear, hotness died down from the day and the asphalt beneath their shoes cooled. Some birds sing their evening song in a high tree and Phil’s car is a little rusty, is Dan’s first thought, but the more he looks at it the more it feels like what older men would call _a real beauty_. 

Because it’s Phil’s, and he probably loves it, fixes it and takes care of it and washes it when it’s gone through dirt. Even though the seats are ripped and the steering wheel sits a bit loose - as Phil points out with a claim not to worry - it’s broken down with love and care. 

Like the jumper that you love until you’ve completely worn it out.

Dan wants to touch Phil.

The car jumps to a start after a long segment of a low, slightly worrying rumble, the radio switching on and playing a cassette tape of extremely distorted guitars. Dan stares probably a bit shocked at the car radio, the singer sounding like a proper drunk as he sings about how they’re _oh so pretty_.

“Sorry,” Phil mumbles, reaches over to switch it out. “Sex Pistols. You wouldn’t like that.”

“No,” Dan rushes, puts his hand on his. _Oh God oh God oh God_. “Don’t change it just for me.”

Phil freezes, eyes fixated at their hands. “It’s alright,” he murmurs, presses the eject button. “I have something better.”

He switches it for something with a blank label, then starts driving. Dan looks out his passenger window and feels the track mix perfectly. Despite the dark tone, the still so distorted instruments nearly unheard of for him, the quick rhythm with the dopey sound is perfect for watching the lines on the asphalt, the streetlights passing in a blur.

“What’s this?” he asks absently.

“Joy Division.”

They continue in silence, save for the directions Dan has to give, the music lulling his worried heart to a rest and distracting his troubled mind. When they’re almost arrived home and the track switches and he takes approximately three seconds to recognise it as Pink Floyd, he nearly laughs out loud. 

Nearly. Instead he just smiles softly, sleepily tapping his finger along to _Breathe_. 

When they pull up in his driveway and all his turmoil is somehow forgotten, feel miniscule to the slow beat of the song, he looks over at Phil, bathing in golden light from the sun and fringe pushed a bit back, sees him studying him. It hits him like a brick all over again.

 _God give me strength to resist this boy_.

“Thank you for the ride,” Dan murmurs, and feels like he could lean over and kiss him. Maybe he’d let him. Maybe he’d actually get away with it. “That was so nice.”

“Sure.” He sees a dark reflection of himself in Phil’s glasses. How horrified he feels isn’t actually showing; instead he notices how his lips are parted, waiting, insatiable, and when he focuses on Phil’s eyes instead, he notices they’re set right on them. How he wets his own. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Dan mumbles, shuffling up. “Mm. Great.”

He bites his lip, leans over the gear lever. He can’t move his eyes from Phil’s lips. Can’t, for fear, but still sees in the corner of his eye how his adam’s apple bob as he comes closer.

Tonight is a late sunset with an early dawn to follow. Tonight is birdsong and orange skies. 

Tonight is Dan hesitating before stopping, stalling, nearly in Phil’s lap when he. Swerves. Puts his arms around him instead. Awkward, crooked, weird and stupid and he falls back from the half-hug, cheeks flushed, knows this should have been something else. Knows he could have been more.

He mumbles a shaky bye to Phil’s shocked face and stumbles out of the car, shuts the door so firmly it could fall off its hinges then rushes up his gravel path, shutting the front door behind himself and sneaking into his room without any thought of dinner.

Tonight is Dan realising he wants to kiss a lovely boy, as well as realising the lovely boy would really let him do it, too. 

He doesn’t really get much sleep that night.

 

 

 

A few nights later Dan wakes up to a strange ticking noise. Like birds pecking. Or rain smattering on glass? 

Small rocks thrown on a window.

He sits up with a start. The noise goes on, and he tumbles out of bed, tangled mess of sheets and hair shaggy as he stumbles over to his window. In the fair blue colour of the early dawn, he sees Phil down there in his backyard with his palm cupped, hand filled with gravel from the path to his house. 

His car stands parked down the street, and he waves when he sees Dan, points to it like it’s a question. Dan is too tired to understand what the question is. He feels like he should probably cover himself up though; he’s just wearing an oversized T-shirt.

Phil puts his hands together, like prayer hands, no, like please-hands. _Please go on a ride with me_.

Dan glances at the clock, the bedside table blue in the early morning. It’s three AM. His parents are asleep for at least another 4 hours. So is he meant to be.  
He holds his finger up. _Wait a minute._

He twirls out of view and holds his hands to his chest, heart pounding and lips smiling achingly large as he stares up into the ceiling. He doesn’t even know what he’s really getting dressed for when he throws on a peach jumper and blue jeans, tucks it in sloppily as he sneak-runs down the stairs and steps into his trainers. He grabs his wallet before he leaves, just in case. Not that any stores are open, but it feels… like a thing adults would do.

Because this very much feels like a thing adults would do.

He rushes out to see Phil still in the same spot but turned to face him, Dan’s smile more timid now but Phil’s large and genuine. “Were you asleep?”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“Or three in the evening,” Phil suggests. He tugs gently on Dan’s jumper. “You look nice.”

Dan takes a step closer with the movement and he bites his lip, unsure. His head is swimming a bit. “Why are you here?”

Phil strokes the soft wool with his thumb, face fond. Dan realises he’s got things filling out those symmetrical dimples in his skin now, a ring through his nose and two tiny metal balls underneath his bottom lip. Another two of those sit by his eyebrow as well. 

“Just wanted to see you,” he murmurs, dropping his hand. He’s also wearing a large leather jacket, Dan notes, broad shoulders and spikes and with a small rainbow flag pin attached to it. Dan’s legs feel weak. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Dan urges, can’t look away from all the beauty in front of him, can’t shake the strong need to touch it all. “I wanna go.” He looks into his alarmingly blue eyes. “Let’s go.”

Phil grins. He reaches his hand out, seems to want to grab Dan’s but he hesitates, stops, but Dan beats him to it, takes Phil’s hand in his and intertwines their fingers. Phil might blush a bit. Dan definitely does.

They almost run across the grass, eager to get away to who knows where. Dan’s biggest concern is the knowledge he’s going to have to let go of Phil’s warm safe hand to get into the car. Maybe he should just stay outside. Maybe sit in his lap. Oh, God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Phil rounds the car to the other side but their fingers stay locked, slowly slipping apart until only their fingertips are touching, and they lock eyes over the hood of the car, bodies extended ridiculously far to just still be touching. They freeze. Then Dan grins, lets go and hops into the car, Phil following and connecting their hands over the gear lever. They laugh, embarrassed yet relaxed, so relieved the feeling’s mutual.

“I need that to switch gears,” Phil points out about his perfect left hand.

“I’ll help,” Dan says like it’s obvious.

Phil smiles, those piercings glistening. Dan wonders what they feel like. What they would feel like against his lips. 

Oh _God_. 

They drive off, Dan’s hand first on top of Phil’s to see how he does it, then underneath, guided. Dan is almost so focused on that (he’s never driven a car before, or anything really; never been allowed to try) he doesn’t realise when they’re slowing down, and he looks up, car stopped by a secluded part of a park. The sky has some light seeping in, making it a lighter blue with hues of yellow, and in front of them lies the rows and rows of houses suburban Reading.

“Wow,” is all he can think to say.

Phil squeezes his hand.

Dan looks away from the view, to the somehow even more beautiful view right next to him. He’s suddenly acutely aware of how alone they really are now. Trees surrounding them, looking down over the people that would judge, that would shun them. Not parked outside Dan’s house. Not on a Cinderella mission to get him home.

He feels a flame burn through his body when Phil’s eyes come up from his lips to his eyes.

He leans in closer, leather creaking and their hands having to be moved, trapped between them as Phil puts his other one on Dan’s cheek, so gently. Dan just blinks, stunned, baffled, that someone would touch him like that, like he’s the most beautiful porcelain and so careful not to break him. Such a touch with so much love and adoration. And God does he want to do the same. God does he wish he could.

So he does.

He leans forward. A bit jerky, awkward even, too nervous to even fathom the consequences of these actions but filled with too much of an urge to stop. He grabs Phil’s shoulder, almost desperate, lips parted and half-lidded eyes darting over Phil’s face, his body. 

It’s like they don’t dare to move then. Just inches apart, only small, quick breaths bouncing between them. 

Dan leans in first.

His lips meet Phil’s, tentative, stiff. But then Phil responds, and Dan feels like actual fireworks are going off inside him.

A hot feeling surges through him and he draws a sharp breath as Phil kisses him deeper, digging his nails into the leather as Phil’s hand slides down to the side of Dan’s neck, thumb on the hinge of his jaw. Dan opens it wider. Lets Phil do what he wants, take what is his. And it’s never felt this good before.

He feels tongue, teeth and metal, it’s rough and needy but full and lovely at the same time. The word must be _passionate_. 

When they break apart and their lips are kissed swollen and red, and Dan just needs one look at those sinful lips before he’s attaching his own to them again, then climbing into Phil’s lap. 

That’s _passion._

When he sits down in his lap, though. That’s when things switch around. Because Phil emits a low noise, a moan, filled with such lust and need Dan has never heard before, and his hands come gripping Dan’s hips where he’s kneeling around him in the seat. That feeling mixed with such a filthy sound goes straight to his tummy, exploding in a sharp but so pleasurable sensation, and suddenly his heart is beating like a steel hammer in his chest.

He pulls away, shocked by this new feeling, this new version of need and Phil grabs him harder, but never once hurting. “Dan.”

His voice is so breathy and dark, so out of it, Dan barely dares open his own mouth because he’s scared he’ll sound just as intoxicated by Phil, because he knows he is.  
Phil strokes his thumb over Dan’s jaw when he doesn’t speak, but not to prompt anything out of him. Just to reassure, as he studies him with wary eyes, lips still kissed raw from Dan. “You’re beautiful.”

Dan immediately tucks his chin to his chest but he smiles through the blush. “So are you.”

Phil tilts his head up, leaves him another soft peck. It makes a cute smack noise to make Dan scrunch his nose up. He can’t believe he just did that. He just kissed a boy, and he did it more than just once.

And no one saw. No one knows he did it. No one will hurt him for it.

Phil trails a finger down Dan’s neck to his collarbones, and Dan squeezes his jacket tighter. “Do you wanna go back home?”

The sky is yellow, blue and pink. Sunlight sifts through the atmosphere, soon to bathe the world in golden. Dan is sitting with the person he cares the most about in the world, and- no, not quite. He’s sitting _on_ him. And they can _kiss_. The boy he adores in a scenery like something imagined from reading a book.

He arches an eyebrow at the question. “We just got here.”

Phil meets his eyes. Then he meets his lips.

If this is sin, then Dan wants to burn.

They don’t return home until the wee hours of the early morning (and it is morning now, definitely, and no longer an ”alternative evening”) with Phil’s eyes still watching the road with just as much concentration as before. Even Dan has abandoned the thought of any sleepiness lulling him back to dreamland. His mind is racing, body buzzing with adrenaline and his lips feel raw, little scratches and crescent-shapes burning pleasantly over his neck and shoulders and back.

When they stop outside Dan’s house they look at each other, gazes burning. 

_Kissing. Kissing goodbye._

It shouldn’t happen. So it doesn’t. Instead Phil strokes his thumb over Dan’s cheek, making Dan’s eyes flutter shut, and he murmurs: “See you soon?”

“Yeah,” Dan murmurs back, grabs Phil’s hand to hold in his one last time. “Really soon.”

He holds on for a beat longer before he tears his eyes away, exits the car and sneaks back into his house. It’s 6AM when he gets into bed, house still quiet and draped in shadows.  
Sleep never comes. The anxiety, however, does.

Because he might just be in love with him.

 

 

 

He stays home for a few days. 

It’s not intentional, at first. At first, he just has to process everything. Lies awake sweating and tossing through the nights then can’t bear go outside and face the day; face this life he’s chosen to lead, like the sun might just go down as soon as it sees his petty face. That every mirror would crack if he looked in it, that every shop would close once he even walked closeby. That everything would just do anything to avoid him and his awful existence. 

His mum keeps him busy with chores and his dad insists he help him fix the car up, like boys do. Normal boy things. Things boys should do. And after a few days turns to a week, he doesn’t want to go back anymore. He swears he’s over that man by Sunday eve. 

He reads comic after comic, rents films, reads books he’s already read. Tries to take his mind off everything the best he can but he can’t feel the sun’s warmth on his skin, all food tastes bland. He’s constantly sick and tired and achy because he’s scared, he’s so incredibly scared and knows God’s wrath will be upon him, and he just doesn’t know when. Can’t possibly prepare and it’s really just a waiting game. 

He finds one of his parents’ records he ends up actually not loathing. It’s got songs about wanting to marry but being too young, about wanting a special someone to say they love them. He plays it over and over as he sits in front of the speaker and feels the vibrations. Plays it until the words don’t make any sense anymore and that’s how he supposes things like these go. They don’t make sense. They weren’t made for him. 

“ _Gee, the moon is shining bright, wish I could come out tonight.”_

Sometimes he cries. Sometimes, the feelings of sadness and helplessness are so big, so consuming, he ends up just feeling nothing at all. 

It’s moments like those when he can only really muster lying in bed and staring into the wall. Because usually when you’re sad, you can do something about it, you can distract yourself from the thing infesting your head. But when you’re sad about yourself, when your own self-hatred is so consuming, there’s really nothing you can do to get out of it.  
And then he ends up missing him. And he misses him so, so much.

 _”Why don’t they let us fall in love? Why don’t they let us fall in love? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah._ ”

He’s going to be surely put to death and the blood will be upon him.

 

 

 

It’s been two weeks when Phil shows up at his house.

Dan doesn’t know he does at first, of course, because it’s three AM and he’s asleep. The car is parked even further down the street than before, no motor running, no dogs barking as they would if he would have walked through the front gate like a normal visitor at an ordinary visiting hour. Those little bits of gravel thrown on his window give him a good clue though. 

Dan stirs awake and stumbles to his window, all too familiar to that time all those nights ago. It kind of makes his chest feel a little tight with the memory. Feeling wanted. Needed. 

Desired, even. 

There’s not been a lot of that, these days. He’ll admit as much. 

It’s like all air is punched out of his lungs when he sees him. 

Phil is in that gorgeous leather jacket and it’s truly not fair, truly just cruel how it makes his heart beat that much harder in his little chest, how there seems to be a strange stirring in his tummy like he’s getting that strange sickness again. Sick with how he looks, hair so jet black and eyes so icy blue. Sick with how much he missed him.

Phil seems to be no better off when he sees Dan through the window, and that’s an odd sensation. To be equally, mutually infatuated by someone, and to be able to tell so easily, almost as if-

As if, nothing. 

It doesn’t mean anything. 

He tries his best to showcase being absolutely unbothered but he’s sure anyone can see how his eyes are big and intense with love, because that’s exactly the way Phil is looking at him right at that very moment. 

There’s a few beats of just that. The eye contact. Then he points to his car, creases his brow to a questioning _please_ sort of way. 

And Dan’s mock harsh exterior falls to pieces. 

His last will to fight is left with his sleep shirt he throws on the floor to find a jumper and jeans in a rush, and then he’s down the stairs and out to the boy he for some reason cares about the most. 

He wants to be mad. He wants to be cold, to look away, study his nails or the ground but he doesn’t know what for. Doesn’t know what he wants to pretend he’s mad at, really, when he’s been the one avoiding and being a bad friend. He wants to play hard to get, but instead. 

Instead he jumps into Phil’s open arms. 

He wraps his arms and legs around him and Phil holds him to him for the split second they actually manage to mimic a koala and a tree, then Dan is dropping to the grass in a fit of giggles. Strange, how even when he doesn’t want to, Phil is the only one to make him laugh. 

He lies on his back with his legs pulled up and laughs up at the starry sky, not scared about who will hear, won’t be quiet. He’s happy. For the first time in two whole weeks, he doesn’t feel trapped in a dark room. 

Phil is chuckling adorably and he reaches a hand out for Dan to pull him up. ”You okay?”

His voice sends all his nerve endings to an electric shortage. It’s like there’s a zap, then he’s done for, and when he grabs Phil’s hand it’s not to let him pull him up; it’s to pull him down on top of him. 

Phil catches himself not to hurt either of the two but then he’s just on his hands and knees above Dan, both laughing themselves crinkly-eyed. And he’s just so warm, so alive, like the sun’s warmth is finally reaching Dan’s skin but instead it’s giving him goosebumps. When Phil leans down to kiss him, their grins are almost too wide for it to be proper. It takes a few beats before their lips actually seal and even then, they’re still smiling at it all. 

Dan puts his hands to Phil’s face and the kiss deepens, if only for a moment. They can’t. Not here. So when Phil pulls away, Dan knows it’s not forever. Just until they get out of view.

”Let’s get out of here,” he suggests, except it’s more of a statement.

They have to.

Dan nods coyly and lets Phil pull him up properly, once he’s stood himself and brushed the grass off his knees. Dan stumbles into his chest of course, but he quickly shoots off again and towards the car, can’t linger in that warmth of his body with those protective arms wrapped around him. God knows what he’d do.

(God really knows, doesn’t he? God wouldn’t be happy.)

They’re quickly away once they get into the car, and Dan knows that wherever they’re going he can’t just sit expecting to be kissed and adored for a few hours like last time. He has to talk. Most importantly, he has to apologize.

But it’s just weird, isn’t it? It’s difficult, because he doesn’t even know how to explain it all. He’s sure Phil isn’t even religious. Phil is too oblivious to know how wrong it is, what they’re doing; can only really know how good it feels. How _right_.

So how does he explain the reason he couldn’t talk to him for two whole weeks is because he’s so awfully, horribly in love with him?

It’s as he’s thinking that that the stereo switches tracks and a guitar strumming comes through, a voice singing _”You’re just too good to be true. Can’t take my eyes off you.”_

And, oh. Oh, lord.

He stares wide-eyed, but it has to just be a coincidence, doesn’t it? Of course. It’s not like he can be expected to be sat listening non-stop to the lyrics or every song, expected to hear the subliminal messages. Subliminal messages put in just for him just this one time when he really needed to hear it. 

So why did he catch it? Was he supposed to? Why would Phil put a song on a tape for him?

Why would he?

He looks up at him, at how he’s white-knuckling the steering wheel. Wild eyes set on the dark road in front of them. It’s like he’s listening too, hyper-aware, wanting to look over at Dan but trying hard to stay focused. Dan bites his lip. Wonders what is actually going on as his heart hammers on.

_”You’d feel like Heaven to touch; I want to hold you so much. At long last love has arrived, and I thank God I’m alive.”_

All the while they drive on under more silence between them, and Dan realises he once again doesn’t actually know where he’s going. Maybe that should be frightening. It isn’t. What frightens him instead is how much trust he has in Phil keeping him out of danger, because he knows he will.

So he just looks out the window and waits for them to arrive.

_”You’re just too good to be true. Can’t take my eyes off you.”_

They end up parking in the other end of town this time, still secluded, forested and quiet. The song is just ending when Phil switches the motor off.

He turns in his seat to Dan, and suddenly every potential words are snatched from his lungs. ”I’m sorry,” is what comes out instead. 

Phil tilts his head and looks a little concerned. ”What for?”

”For being a knobhead,” he mutters, to which Phil can only laugh. ”It’s true. I shouldn’t have said to see you soon and then seen you, not at all.”

”I could have come to you too, though,” Phil interjects, and it stabs Dan’s heart. His tone is just casual but it’s the implications the words carry that bruise. That he chose not to see him. That he didn’t want to. 

”Oh,” he says. Looks away. ”Right.”

Phil shifts. ”Hey, no.” He puts his hand gently on Dan’s knee. His touch burns through his jeans. ”Not like that. I was just saying you shouldn’t blame yourself for it. We were both scared. Maybe me the most, actually.”

He doesn’t remove his hand. Not even when Dan doesn’t answer. 

”So I… yeah. Just wanted to come and make sure you were okay and didn’t hate me. Or that I hadn’t… hurt you.” 

”You didn’t,” Dan mumbles, can’t look at him right now for some reason. ”Couldn’t. Just… You know.”

”Is it because you’re Christian?” 

Oh, well, there it is. ”Catholic,” he corrects in a mumble.

”Ah.” Phil drums his fingers, then squeezes his knee. It’s reassuring enough for Dan to relax his tense shoulders, even if it’s just a bit. ”I’m not too educated on the subject, I’m afraid. Is it the whole burn in Hell deal or what have you?”

That truly stabs Dan through the heart. How blatantly it’s put out there, how casual. 

His worst fear in the whole world.

Phil must notice how he twitches and goes tense again. ”Dan?”

Dan squeezes his eyes shut. He feels tears burning threateningly, his body shaking. Not now. _Not now._

”Dan,” Phil repeats, so gently, so sweetly, and he squeezes his knee that way again and oh God, _oh God_. ”Please can you look at me?”

He musters shaking his head stubbornly, wants to just curl up and have a stupid little cry. On his own. Just be alone, scream into his pillow, in his dark room where no one will find him. 

But Phil strokes his thumb over his cheek then, strokes away the lone tear that escaped. ”I’d really like if you explained this to me, so I’d know how to help,” he speaks, slowly and warmly. ”I know it’s silly to say but, crying doesn’t solve anything, you know. But, if you want to just let it out… I’m right here.”

That does it.

Dan falls into his arms, uncomfortably over the gear and handbrake but he curls up in his seat, buries his face in Phil’s chest and just _sobs_. Proper, proper sobs with little whines and whimpers and _tears_ , tears going absolutely _everywhere_. Phil will be soaked through his shirt by the end of it but for now, with his fingers running through Dan’s hair and his mouth hushing into the crown of his head, he seems to not really mind it.

So he might as well just. Let it out.

He doesn’t really know how long it’s been when he finally stops, and it’s even longer before he’s not shaking anymore. Longer yet before he wants to leave that protective warmth enveloping him, and even then he doesn’t really _want_ to but figures it’s courtesy. 

His face is probably red and puffy but Phil still doesn’t look at him with disgust. He doesn’t look at him like Dan feels like he should be looked at, and that sparks some sort of strange, distant hope within his chest. 

”Sorry,” he mumbles, running a sleeved hand under his nose. ”That was- wow.”

”Don’t apologise,” Phil murmurs. ”It’s not good to bottle things up. It’ll eat you up.”

Dan shrugs. ”Suppose.”

Phil studies him warily, his raw lips, his trembling jumper-paws. ”Do you want to talk now? Or another time?”

Dan groans sadly. ”Do I have to _ever_?”

”Yep.”

”Well.” He rubs his eye with his knuckle angrily. ”Yeah, so. It’s a sin, basically. Right? You can’t have romantic feelings for a boy if you’re a boy, or to a girl if you’re a girl. Girls and boys go together, and get married, and have babies, and their babies have babies and everyone loves them. I’ve never, ever loved a girl before in my life. Not like that, I couldn’t, I… I can’t. I’ve tried, tried to force it, read all the romantic novels but I found myself swooning over Gatsby instead of Daisy, you know? I wanted to _be_ Daisy, I wanted someone to show me that green light, a handsome man to be so insanely in love with me and me with him. So, like, basically, I’m disgusting. A filthy… faggot, they call it, and I’ll burn in Hell’s flames forever. Always in this excruciating, horrible pain for just doing what made me the happiest I’ve ever been.” He drops his hands helplessly. ”So, yeah, I guess. Guess that kinda sucks.”

Phil looks at him for a beat, stunned. ”That’s the most you’ve ever talked in one sentence.”

Dan instantly blushes. ”Oh.” He scratches the back of his head. ”Something I’m passionate about, I guess, right?”

”And it’s not even a real thing.” Dan’s eyes widen, probably comically much. Phil smiles fondly. ”Listen. And really try to think about it, okay, and don’t just focus on what you already know. You believe in science, right?”

”Well.” He tilts his head from side to side. ”Depends. I guess.”

”You know that if you drop something,” he drops his hand into his lap for emphasis, ”it’s because of gravity. We can see that, it exists. You know that our emotions are chemicals and stuff in your brain.”

”Can’t see that, though.”

He shuffles a bit closer. Dan stares into the ocean of his eyes and breathing is suddenly just that much harder. ”I can see your pupils dilate when you look at me,” Phil murmurs, and his voice is so husky yet smooth it makes Dan’s legs jelly, his mind a screaming mess. ”I can feel those little happy sighs you make when I hold you. How hard your heart beats.” He holds his hand to Dan’s chest, heart thumping against his ribcage. ”You’ve got a heart and you’ve got a mind and a soul. You’re a thinking, feeling being, and you’re wonderful. That’s real. This,” he gestures between them, ”is real.”

”I think I forgot where this conversation was going.”

Phil smiles. ”Catholicism is real. It’s a religion, people practise it. Now, a man in the sky promising a paradise, or a red creature in the underworld threatening to hurt you..? Which, by the way, why would he punish the sinners? If he’s so evil, why would he want them to suffer for what he loves?”

Dan blinks. He’s blushing. ”I don’t know.”

Phil just looks at him for a beat, then he takes his hand in his. ”That’s not real, Dan. You’ve never seen it, you can’t prove it. Why devote your life to it? It seems to only make you sad.” 

”It brings me so much happiness, too,” Dan pipes in, but he’s close to trembling again, voice weak. ”My whole family is Catholic. And in church, it’s like we’re all a whole family, something larger. It feels safe.”

”And how does this feel?” Phil asks, and squeezes his hand.

And oh, God. Dan shuts his eyes. ”Safe.”

”Right.”

He opens his eyes again, and Phil is looking at their hands, stroking his thumb over Dan’s.

”I just think, you know. Maybe keep the stuff that makes you happy and leave out what makes you so sad?” Phil suggests. ”Keep going to church, keep your family as close as before. Just, maybe don’t read up so much on the bad things. That book was written thousands of years ago anyway, they had no clue about anything.”

”They had no clue we’d be here in 1978,” Dan mumbles, so weak, ”hiding away, holding hands.”

Here, in 1978, in the outskirts of the Reading suburbs far from the people they know or any people at all, really. It’s quiet, and it’s dark, and Dan is still so helplessly in love it actually hurts. 

Phil hums. ”Sorry it seems like hiding. Well, guess it is. Figured we’d both feel better that way.”

”Well, I feel just great,” Dan lies through a bitter laugh.

”You make me happy,” Phil says then, so suddenly Dan snaps his own mouth shut. ”I want to make you happy too, if I can. So please don’t joke about that.”

”I’m sorry,” Dan murmurs for lack of anything better.

”Don’t be.”

”Kiss me?”

He can almost not believe his own words, eyes flicking up from where they’d drifted down to Phil’s lips. But Phil’s face is kind, not angry. He nods. 

It ends up lasting until the sun comes sifting through the dark veil of the night sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more to come if you want !


End file.
